COLD WAR I AND II – SOLUTIONS ANYONE?

By Johan Galtung and - - Reprint | | Print |

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ALFAZ, SPAIN, Jul 14 2008 (IPS) - Cold War I came and went, and then, in the mid-1990s, Cold War II began, building on the ruins of Cold War I and now gathering strength, writes Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies, founder of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this analysis, Galtung writes that the Cold War ended because of the non-aligned Helsinki process (1972-75) initiated by Finnish President Kekkonen and because people\’s movements turned against the governments. The Final Act of Helsinki 1975 confirmed borders in Eastern Europe, initiated a mixed economy through investment in the East, and a turn toward human rights in the Soviet Union – all useful. And so the Cold War withered away, devoid of real issues, with no winners and no losers. Solutions today? A Helsinki-style conference. Declare an end – no winner, no loser. The US empire collapses like the Soviet did, and then blossoms. A mixed economy is already there, social if not democratic. Democracy and human rights with self-determination are on the world agenda, in the West too with its numerous Tibets. What we need are non-aligned countries. And massive people\’s movements. Are they coming?

The question to begin with is what was the first Cold War about? The rhetoric of the time from both the establishment and the anti-establishment would suggest that it was about the arms race in general and nuclear arms in particular and the threat of nuclear war. The twin slogans “Better Red than Dead” and “Better Dead than Red” convey one aspect of the thinking of the era, though most people opted for neither.

But however serious this issue was, it was not the root issue. At bottom were three fundamental questions:

-Who rules Eastern Europe, the West or the Soviet Union?

-Which economic system is better, capitalism or socialism?

-Which polity is better, democracy or a dictatorship by the proletariat?

Were the two sides also aiming at world dominion? Yes, inasmuch as each was convinced that the world wanted the best economic-political model – meaning its own. The marxist position, socialism by proletariat dictatorship, had a touch of inevitability in which slavery-feudalism-capitalism was to be followed by socialism and communism in keeping with the “laws” of historical materialism. It took time for liberalism, the West, and the US in particular to come up with a parallel theoretical framework: “stages of growth” culminating in mass consumption. US economist Walt Rostow, the author of “The Stages of Economic Growth”, was no Karl Marx, but individualist materialism proved attractive. The “inevitability”, though, was couched in mathematical terms that were impenetrable to most and hence not contested.

Many had compared the rapidly-growing Soviet Union of the 30s under the Five Year Plans with the US in the Great Depression – and favoured the former. They had a strong point: the communist tenet of meeting first the basic material needs of the most needy.

But the West saw only Soviet expansion of the Red Army in Eastern Europe and underestimated the communist parties and the class-centred redistribution process that was necessary in post-feudal societies. The East saw only the US expansion in favour of the status quo, underestimating the process of growth, which was also necessary. Eastern Europe moved in the Soviet direction, while in much of the rest of the world the US intervened militarily.

The contradictions were real indeed. Attitudinal-behavioral polarization followed, alliances were formed – NATO in 1949 and the Warsaw Treaty Organization in 1955 – and the arms race literally sky-rocketed. In the constant evolution of new weaponry, the Soviet Union followed wherever the US was leading.

The Cold War did not end because the arms race subsided. The search for MAD – mutually assured destruction – went on (and still does) even if balanced destruction was tempered by balanced vulnerability (the ABM treaty, leaving key cities vulnerable).

What happened was that to a large extent the issues were actually resolved, partly thanks to Gorbachev. It was an agonizing, nerve-wrecking period, but some rationality was at work. It could have happened much earlier: – The solution to who rules Eastern Europe was obvious: the Eastern Europeans themselves, with Yugoslavia blazing a trail, growing gradually less communist.

-The economic solution was a mixed public-private economy with a welfare state: social democracy, convergence in short.

-And the solution to the polity issue was human rights, though not only civil-political but also social-economic-cultural rights.

Many argued for these solutions, while the alliances continued to play their deadly games. The Cold War ended because of the non-aligned Helsinki process (1972-75) initiated by Finnish President Kekkonen and because people’s movements turned against the governments: the Western peace movement focused on the arms issue, and the Eastern dissident movement on human rights.

The Final Act of Helsinki 1975 confirmed borders in Eastern Europe, initiated a mixed economy through investment in the East, and a turn toward human rights in the Soviet Union – all useful.

And so the Cold War withered away, devoid of real issues, with no winners and no losers.

Then came a catastrophe: the US declared itself winner and followed where the Soviet Union withdrew, treating Russia like Germany and Japan after World War II. Meanwhile China’s growth had startled a West not impressed with redistribution processes. NATO moved eastward and AMPO (USA-Japan) westward, encircling Russia-China. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was the response, with Russia-China and four Central Asian republics as members, and India, Pakistan, and Iran as observers. Cold War II was born and ABM skipped.

What is the solution now? What are the issues?

As in the 1930s, there is a job to be done today: moving people out of misery, like China did for 400 million people between 1990-2004. That economy is not socialist but capitalist with the Party having the final word. The polity is neither democracy nor proletariat dictatorship, but it is democratizing in very many ways short of introducing multi-party national elections. There is armament, and even an arms race, through there is neither a Russian nor a Chinese army abroad – rather there is the US with its 700 bases in 130 countries, engaged in devastating wars. The China-US economic equation looks like that between the Soviet Union and the US 75 years ago, with Africa playing the role of Eastern Europe in the 1950s with the industrialised countries’ appetite for raw materials competing against projects to improve the lives of the most needy.

Solutions?

A Helsinki-style conference (Kekkonen, where are you when we need you?). Declare an end – no winner, no loser. The US empire collapses like the Soviet did, and then blossoms. A mixed economy is already there, social if not democratic. Democracy and human rights with self-determination are on the world agenda, in the West too with its numerous Tibets. What we need are non-aligned countries. And massive people’s movements. Are they coming? (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)